


It's Too Cold for You Here

by dynazty



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon Timeline, Explicit Language, Fluff, Lots of Angst, M/M, Romance, Sharing Clothes, ft. that one grey zip-up sweater that mickey wears all the time in the early seasons, ian trying to be a good boyfriend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:01:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24043288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dynazty/pseuds/dynazty
Summary: In which Mickey subconsciously uses his wardrobe to express his mood and Ian is an observant little shit.(spoilers through season 5, title comes from the song "sweater weather" by the neighbourhood.)
Relationships: Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich
Comments: 21
Kudos: 206





	It's Too Cold for You Here

**Author's Note:**

> this is basically a giant love letter to the costume designers and wardrobe coordinators of _shameless_ because even through the all the crazy ups and downs of the show over the years, the costumes remained super consistent and meaningful to each character!! i noticed early on in the series that they put mickey in that one grey-ish, tan-ish sweater quite a lot, especially in the first few seasons, and i wanted to explore it a little more :)
> 
> all mistakes are my own; there are a few brief depictions of canon-typical violence here and there, but nothing super graphic. 
> 
> as always, comments and kudos make my life because i love hearing from you lovely people!! enjoy <3

The first time Ian saw him wearing The Sweater, he didn’t know his name. 

Well -- that’s not entirely true. Ian knew his last name, but that was about it. “Milkovich” was one amongst many infamous surnames of Canaryville, but it was a title dubbed only to the seediest and most vile bloodline of them all -- it was a hard one to bypass. 

Growing up, Ian had heard them called a million names other than “Milkovich”, including (but not limited to): “hoodlums”, “bottom-feeders”, “criminal-junkies”, “parasites”, “wannabe-warlords”, et cetera. They were a family that not only came from the wrong side of the tracks but _created_ the wrong side of the tracks. 

Ever since he was little, Ian had been building them up in his mind as the kind of thugs he saw on television all the time; ones who spiked their hair into mohawks and wore thick leather jackets and had metal rings pierced through their noses and lips. Ones who carried baseball bats and brass knuckles wherever they went; ones who held up ATM machines and gas stations not because they needed money, but because they felt like it. 

So you can only imagine the levels of confusion that rippled through him when he saw the youngest Milkovich brother sitting alone on a swing set in the middle of November wearing nothing but jeans and a heather-grey, zip-up turtleneck sweater that was way, way too big for him. 

He was only a year above Ian at the time, a hard-faced seventh-grader with broad shoulders and a dark, scruffy head of hair. Ian only recognized him from the few appearances he’d ever made in the hallways of the junior high school down the block, but even then he was usually flanked by one or two older Milkovich brothers who had rap sheets longer than Ian’s legs. 

He’d never interacted with any of them under the strict instruction of Lip, who’d told him consistently throughout his childhood to stay as far away from their shit as possible. (“No matter what you do, anything you say or do to them will bite you in the ass later in life. They’re like bees -- if you ignore them, they’ll ignore you. But as soon as you engage with one, you’re engaging with the whole hive, and they sure as hell aren’t afraid to use their stingers.”)

The Milkovich sitting on the swing set in McInerney Park held no torch of resemblance to the thuggish Milkovich stereotype Ian had constructed in his head; he had no mohawk, no piercings, no baseball bats, no leather jacket. 

He just had a sweater. A big, adult-sized sweater that hung past his fingers and scrunched around his waist as he slumped in the plastic swing, legs kicking dejectedly at the mulchy brown snow beneath his feet. 

Ian had stopped walking when he spotted the other boy, gloved hands closed around the straps of his backpack and breath materializing in front of his face in the freezing winter air. Later, he would wonder why exactly he stopped -- there was nothing particularly odd about the Milkovich boy, nothing strange or scary or intriguing. But perhaps that was the intriguing part; how normal and un-criminal-like he looked, sitting there, alone, in the middle of an abandoned playground caked with litter and day-old sleet. 

In truth, the biggest thing that caught Ian’s attention that day was how phenomenally underdressed the older boy was for the weather. 

“Aren’t you cold?” he blurted from across the tiny park without meaning to.

The Milkovich boy whipped his head up in surprise, feet coming to a standstill and eyes blowing wide. He looked a bit like a spooked racehorse. 

Ian waited apprehensively for a reply, grip tightening on his backpack straps as the older boy scrutinized him warily. When no reply came, his mouth continued to run: “You should probably put a jacket on or something. So you don’t freeze to death.”

( _Don’t get involved in their shit_ , Lip’s voice rang in his head like a fire alarm, _stay away from them and you’ll stay out of trouble._ )

The Milkovich boy blinked his round, blue eyes once before his expression solidified into something as harsh and icy as the air around them. “Fuck off,” he called back, voice dry and grating.

Ian blinked back. “Okay,” he said, unruffled. He resumed walking towards the gate at the other end of the park that opened up into the alley running parallel to his street. But before he reached up on his tiptoes and undid the latch of the gate, he peered back over his shoulder. “At least put on a hat. Your ears will get frostbite if you don’t.” 

The Milkovich boy stopped swinging again and glared at Ian. “Fuck. Off.”

Ian turned back around, unlatched the gate, and did just that.

* * *

The second time Ian saw him wearing The Sweater, he did know his name. His first name, that is.

“Mikhailo Milkovich?” The tenth-grade English teacher, Ms. Garza, lifted her gaze from the attendance sheet in her hand, ballpoint pen tapping against it idly as she scanned her second-period class. 

“It’s Mickey.”

Ian swiveled in his seat to follow the familiar gruff voice in its wake, eyes falling on the youngest Milkovich brother tucked away in the back row of desks, slouching lethargically with one leg stretched into the aisle next to him. His face was as stony as ever, mouth wrenched into a stale frown and chin tucked against the collar of his dark grey sweater -- _the_ dark grey sweater.

“Pardon?” Ms. Garza asked from the front of the classroom, wire-framed spectacles sliding comically down her nose. 

“It’s Mickey,” the dark-haired, grubby-faced teenager repeated apathetically, “not Mikhailo.”

“Well then, _Mickey_ ,” Ms. Garza enunciated deliberately as she clicked her pen and scribbled something on the attendance sheet, “are you present, or not?”

Mickey rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’m fuckin’ present.”

Disbelieving laughter whitecapped the classroom at his words, Ian’s own included; it wasn’t every day that someone cussed out their teacher so casually. Ms. Garza’s stare turned murderous.

“Watch it, Milkovich. You don’t want to get a referral on the first day.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Mickey replied, tone oozing sarcasm as he leaned back further in his chair.

“As you should. David Morrison?” 

The giggles died down and a blonde kid sitting a few seats in front of Ian raised his hand. “Here.”

As Ms. Garza moved on with her disinterested roll call, Ian found his gaze slipping back in Mickey Milkovich’s direction, watching with catlike curiosity as he folded his arms over his chest and sank lower into the thralls of his grey sweater. It wasn’t zipped all the way, stopping right beneath his Adam’s apple and folding around the back of his neck. It fit him better this time; the cuffs of the sleeves weren’t falling over his wrists, and the knit fabric was stretched across his neckline and shoulders snugly. Ian wondered distantly why in the world Mickey would wear such a thick quarter-zip in the middle of August, but it was a mere blip on his radar -- he was a little too busy ogling at the fabric hugging the older boy’s biceps to really care about timing. 

Even after roll call finished and Ms. Garza started drilling out the syllabus at the front of the classroom, Ian couldn’t find the strength in him to focus. He continued to steal furtive, quick looks at Mickey, watching his arms as they bent over the desk, watching his (tattooed?) fingers flex around his pencil. Adversely, Mickey didn’t spare Ian as much as a glance, keeping his head down and gaze hooded precariously with his eyebrows.

When the bell finally rang to signal the next period, Ian packed away his stuff purposefully slowly, keeping one eye trained on Mickey as he hauled himself out of his chair and shuffled towards the door. He wasn’t wearing a backpack, and his hands were deep in his pockets, back hunched against the wave of students trying to make it through the exit. As soon as he passed Ian’s desk, Ian slipped after him almost magnetically, his feet moving with a mind of their own. 

He noticed immediately that he was a little taller than Mickey, peering down at the back of his head right where his scalp began. A minuscule part of his brain toyed with the idea of tapping his shoulder and saying something stupid like _hey where’d you get your sweater it really compliments your shoulders just thought you should know for future reference_. He was so close to doing it; his fingers even twitched a little at the prospect of reaching up, poking his arm, opening his mouth--

“Mr. Gallagher?”

Fuck. He stopped a foot away from the door, mind silently crying out in disappointment as the back of Mickey’s figure disappeared into the crowded high school hallway. He looked over his shoulder to find Ms. Garza standing over his desk, his marked-up syllabus hanging between her pointer finger and thumb. 

“Forgetting something?” Her thin eyebrow quirked up.

Ian reddened. “Right, sorry.” He doubled back and plucked the paper from his teacher’s hands, smiling apologetically before making his grand re-exit. “Have a good day.”

As he stepped into the hallway, half of him hoped to catch one last glimpse of the youngest Milkovich brother retreating into the throng of students, but he and his salt-and-pepper-colored sweater were long gone.

Ian sighed. That was both the first and last day he ever saw Mickey Milkovich inside a classroom.

* * *

The third time Ian saw him wearing The Sweater, he knew his first name, his last name, and, incidentally, his sister.

It was over a year later and he was sitting behind the register of the Kash and Grab while his fake girlfriend and youngest member of the Milkovich family, Mandy, was standing across from him, elbows propped on the counter while she twirled a strand of dyed-pink hair around her index finger. She was chattering about something that Ian had lost interest in a while ago, nodding absently along with the sound of her voice while he rearranged the same box of candy bars next to the register for the third time.

“... and if all goes well, we get to pick him up from Danville Correctional next week. But me and Iggy have a bet going to see how long it’ll be before he does something stupid that gets him another month. You want in?”

Ian shook his head slightly to snap himself out of his funk, hands stilling on the candy display as he grasped for an answer. It hit him suddenly -- she was talking about her dad getting out of prison. 

“No, thanks,” he settled with, finally looking up at Mandy with a faint smile. 

She shrugged. “Whatever. Maybe next time?”

“Sure,” he agreed, dropping the final Snickers Bar into the box and leaning back. “Next time.”

“Great,” Mandy grinned, plucking the Snickers Bar from its place and ripping it open. When Ian shot her a look of exasperation, she brushed him off and took a bite. “Calm down, I’ll pay. I know it comes out of your paycheck.”

His shoulders relaxed. “Thanks.”

“No problem, sweetie.” Her grin deepened along with the cheesy pet name. Ian rolled his eyes.

To distract her from taking another piece of candy, he quickly maneuvered the conversation back to her dad. Having a shitty father was a topic he was qualified enough to keep up with. “Are you excited that he’s coming back?”

Mandy snorted through a mouthful of chocolate and caramel. “No? Last time he got out of a sentence this long, he ate everything in our fridge the day he came back. We couldn’t buy real groceries for, like, two whole weeks.”

Ian sucked in a breath through his teeth sympathetically. “Yikes.”

“I know! We were having Frosted Flakes for dinner every single night. How does someone even do that? Eat that much in one day. My stomach would have an aneurysm.”

“Beats me,” Ian replied lightly. 

Just as Mandy opened her mouth to continue talking, the door swung open and the little bell above it tinkled loudly. 

“Yo, you almost done here? Colin’s waiting for us.” 

Mickey was standing on the threshold, clad in the thick grey sweater that Ian had lusted after all those months ago, a bored expression plastered onto his face as he took in the store’s vignette. When his stare landed on Ian behind the counter, his lip curled. 

Ian swallowed. Mickey had been coming into the store a few days a week ever since Mandy accused Ian of rape then spun on her axis and started “dating” him. He wasn’t sure if Mickey was quietly terrorizing the store out of sheer brotherly concern or out of spite for not getting a beating in. Either way, he was around a lot — and he was becoming a frequent shoplifter during Kash’s shifts. 

“Yeah, one sec.” Mandy chewed down the rest of the Snickers Bar and tossed the wrapper at Ian, following it up with a clump of loose change that she pulled out of the pocket of her jean jacket. 

“That enough?” 

Ian didn’t count the change, but he nodded anyway, eager to get Mickey out of the store as fast as possible. No matter how good his shoulders looked. “Yeah, that’ll cover it. Thanks.”

“Anything for you.” Mandy smiled. Before Ian could say something back, she popped up on her toes and leaned over the counter, planting a quick, closed-mouth kiss on his lips with gusto. Her nose bumped him awkwardly, and he jerked back, all too aware of the five feet and seven inches of danger standing with his fists clenched in the doorway. 

“Um,” he stuttered as Mandy drew back, ears turning red. “Bye?”

She smiled and patted his cheek affectionately. “Bye. Call me later?”

“Uh, yeah. Sure.”

“Cool. Thanks for the chocolate!” She flounced backward and headed towards the door, streaked hair bouncing with her step.

Ian watched as she slipped past her brother easily. “You’re welcome.”

Even as she exited the shop, Mickey didn’t move from his place in the doorway; his eyes were on Ian, narrow and cold like broken glass. Ian’s throat dried up immediately. 

“Did you, uh,” his fingers curled against the counter, “... want anything?” Fuck, he sounded dumb.

A small, breathy laugh flew out of Mickey’s mouth. Ian startled at the sound, but hopefully not visibly. “Nah, I don’t want anything. Just try to keep it PG in public with Mandy, will you?”

“Oh.” Ian blinked. “I-- yeah. Okay.”

“Okay.” Mickey’s head nodded forward, satisfied. His eyes broke away from the redhead’s eyes and flicked to a spot near the lower half of his face. “You got some lipstick right here,” he tapped a tattooed finger against the corner of his own mouth, and _fuck him_ for doing that, because now Ian was looking at his mouth. 

Absently, Ian reached his own hand up and thumbed at his lips, wiping away a small swatch of red pigment leftover from Mandy. He looked at it in muted surprise. “Uh. Thanks.”

Mickey’s eyes glinted slyly. “Missed a spot.” Then, he sauntered back out of the store, bell tinkling again as the door swung closed behind him. 

Ian sat, stunned, on his stool behind the register, finger trailing against the seam of his lips. He then turned his head to check himself in the round mirror above the door that was used to keep an eye on the back aisles, and sure enough, the skin above his lips was stained a glossy shade of red, making him look a bit like a teen vampire or a runaway clown. He scrubbed it off with the back of his hand, the lipstick streaking unattractively across his skin until finally being wiped away. 

Despite how hard he tried to get it all off, his lips tasted vaguely of cherry for the rest of the day.

* * *

Mickey’s quiet shoplifting terrorism turned loud and problematic as soon as Linda found out about it. 

She made Ian teach Kash how to shoot a gun outside on the bare strip of weeds and concrete under the L track. Ian did as she said, lying easily about the reason he was so good behind a trigger when her eyebrows went up in confusion and surprise.

“ROTC,” he’d said; he didn’t bother mentioning that the officers working Junior ROTC training would never in a million years teach a bunch of vagabond high schoolers how to shoot a handgun. Kash bought it without a question -- Linda only looked slightly suspicious.

Before closing one night, she caught his elbow and stage-whispered, “I might have to call your principal and let him know about the real reason this country’s number one in school shootings.”

Ian simply smiled back at her grimly. “Trust me, students don’t need ROTC to encourage them to bring guns on campus. That’s just the Second Amendment talking.”

Linda returned the sour look. “Land of the free?”

“Home of the brave.”

* * *

When Ian came into work one day to find Linda’s gun missing and Kash sporting a black eye, things started changing. Fast.

So fast that Ian blinked and all of a sudden he was in Mickey’s bed when he was supposed to be getting the gun back. And Mickey was on top of him. And everything was white-hot and sweaty and dizzying and so, _so_ good. Ian half-convinced himself he was dreaming; that Mickey had successfully knocked him out during their fight and he was having a brain-injury induced hallucination.

But then he was pulling on his jeans while Mickey tugged open one of his drawers and tossed Linda’s gun onto his freshly-stained sheets. And then Ian was leaning in, so confident that this was real, so sure of what he was doing, only to get sidestepped with a curt, “Kiss me and I’ll cut your fucking tongue out.”

He supposed that was only fair; he’d gotten what he wanted, after all.

He returned Linda’s gun to its spot behind the register a day later.

* * *

The fourth time Ian saw him wearing The Sweater, he knew his first name, his last name, his sister, and what his dick looked like. The list just kept getting better and better.

Ian would have been more excited about this fact if it weren’t for the spontaneous homecoming of his batshit-crazy birth mother immediately throwing a wet blanket over the glittering flame in his chest. The minute he’d heard Monica’s name, he’d started running, head pounding as loud as his heart, boots crunching against the ice-coated sidewalk, wetness prickling at his eyes.

He didn’t realize he was running towards the Milkovich house until he was standing on their front porch, chest heaving, arm raised and hand clenched in a fist so he could pound on the door. 

When Mickey finally opened it, agitated and annoyed, the first thing Ian noticed was his sweater; it wasn’t zipped at all, collar popped limply around his neck and giving way to the hem of a dirty, off-white crewneck. The second thing Ian noticed was his eyes; if he didn’t know any better, he would have guessed that the older boy had been crying, what with the puffy red corners of his eyelids and the glassy blue sheen that caught in the light as soon as the door opened. 

It scared Ian for a moment. Boys didn’t cry in his neighborhood -- they weren’t allowed to. Especially not pistol-swinging, coke-dealing Milkovich boys, 

“I need to see you,” he said, words tumbling from his mouth like stones hitting a river.

Mickey’s usually indifferent expression was missing, and in its place was a picture of rough distress, worry, maybe even concern. At that point, Ian didn’t care who the concern was for -- he was going to take what he could get.

“Not a good time.”

Ignoring a gruff, tantalizing shout that reverberated from somewhere inside the house, Ian pressed, “I don’t know where else to go.”

There was something deep churning in Mickey’s gaze, something Ian had never seen before. He didn’t know exactly what to do with it, so he latched onto it, eyes pleading, breath coming out in short intervals.

Mickey gave in eventually, instructing Ian sternly to meet him at the Kash and Grab. Ian had no qualms agreeing, and he had to stop himself from dropping to his knees right there on the rickety porch and thanking Mickey over and over again. Instead, he channeled that energy into running for the better half of the ten minutes it took to get to the store on foot.

Fifteen minutes after he made it to the store, Mickey strode in, bell ringing like a choir of angels welcoming Ian into heaven. Ian had been slumped against the counter, running his hands obsessively through his hair while his leg bounced in anticipation, but he perked up the minute the door opened. 

“The fuck, Gallagher?” the older boy asked in place of a greeting, pushing at Ian’s shoulder without much menace. He was still wearing the sweater.

Ian, for once, didn’t push him back. “I’m sorry,” he started, a lump the size of a tennis ball lodging uncomfortably in his throat, “I didn’t know what to do.”

Mickey’s jaw was set into a hard line and his eyes weren’t red anymore. “What’s going on, man?”

Ian would rather find a shovel and dig his own grave than air all his dirty laundry to a Milkovich, but something in his brain just wasn’t letting him catch a break. “My mom came home and I-- I just…” he trailed off. “I needed to get out.”

Mickey’s head cocked. “She hit you or something?”

Ian winced, letting his weight drop further onto the counter as he leaned back. “Not exactly. She’s just-- she’s a lot. A lot to handle. Too much.”

Mickey eyed him, and for a moment Ian was afraid he’d laugh or something, spit in his face, tell him to grow a pair, deal with his mommy-issues like any other normal human being. Instead, he stepped closer. “At least you got a mom, Carrot Top.”

Ian instantly felt like the world's biggest asshole. “Shit, Mick, I didn’t mean--”

Mickey held up a hand to shut him up. “Doesn’t matter. Is the back room open?”

Ian’s mind was stilted in surprise. “Um… I think so?”

“Good. Front door locked?”

When Ian couldn’t find the words to respond, Mickey rolled his eyes and began to shoulder past him. 

“Lock it. I’ll be in the back. Don’t be too long.” 

Ian sure as hell wasn’t too long. He’d never locked a door so fast in his life. 

Mickey kept his sweater on when they fucked, and Ian couldn’t have been more grateful. With one hand wrapped around Mickey’s as they pushed up against a shelf of lukewarm six-packs, the other digging into his shoulder, Ian put out everything he had. He dropped his forehead and pressed his face into Mickey’s neck, into his collar, letting his muscles do all the work while his brain reveled in the smell of sweat, cigarette smoke, and laundry detergent. Clearly, the sweater had been washed recently, and for some odd reason, the thought spurred Ian even more as he gripped the older boy tighter, closer. 

Gone was the expression of worry and annoyance that Mickey had held earlier. Gone were his wet eyes and swollen eyelids. Gone were Ian’s thoughts about Monica, about Frank, about anyone and anything that wasn’t Mickey. _Mickey, Mickey, Mickey._

For that moment, it was only them. Only Ian, only Mickey, only that fucking grey sweater. Ian wanted nothing more than to spin Mickey around so they were face-to-face and capture his mouth, to let Mickey know that he’s all in. Completely, undoubtedly, all in.

But, of course, Kash had to open the door before he could even begin to corral his thoughts. And, of course, Mickey had to bolt the second Ian’s rhythm faltered, and the fear, the hate, the resentment that crashed across his face was enough to knock Ian off his feet. He was honestly surprised it didn’t.

With Kash’s hurt, hawk-like eyes on him, Ian pulled on his apron and went back to work. He stubbornly ignored the lingering feel of Mickey’s sweater against his bare skin.

* * *

Mickey came back to the store later that evening. Ian never figured out exactly why.

He was still wearing the grey sweater when he was carted off in a wailing ambulance, a bullet from Linda’s gun lodged snugly in his thigh and a half-eaten Snickers Bar hanging limp in his fingers.

Fucking Milkoviches and their fucking Snickers Bar addictions.

Ian didn’t stick around long enough to watch the cops pull up and start questioning Kash. He was off again, running back in the direction he’d come from all those hours ago, sweat pouring down the back of his neck and chest thrumming.

All he could think was _Mickey, Mickey, Mickey._

* * *

Mickey went to juvie for three months without pressing charges. 

The same day he got out, Ian took him to the middle school baseball dugouts. His eyes looked bluer than they ever had under the long, white light of the overheads shuttering in through the chain link fence as he smirked and undid his belt buckle. 

Ian could feel his feet slipping out from under him, and he knew that soon enough, he was going to fall for this boy. He was going to fall so, so hard. It was only a matter of time.

* * *

They really needed to stop fucking in the back room at the Kash and Grab.

The second time they got caught, it wasn’t by Kash, but by Frank, of all people. 

“We gotta kill him,” Mickey said after they were both decent and Ian’s drunkard father had vacated the premises, face so serious that Ian thought for a moment he’d turned to stone. 

Ian tried to put him at ease, convince him that Frank was as harmless as a cockroach -- he may have been annoying, and he may have popped up in the worst place at the worst time, but he had more bark than bite. He’d barely even batted an eye when he opened up the freezer door. But Mickey refused to listen. 

Ian wasn’t worried about Frank in the least, and as romantic as the idea of killing him was, he couldn’t bear the thought of Mickey getting sent back to a correctional facility. He probably wouldn’t even get a fair trial -- the judge would take one look at his knuckle tattoos and send him on his way down to Danville with the rest of Illinois’ phenomenal fuckups. 

“I’ll talk to him,” Ian tried.

* * *

Mickey got sent back to juvie anyway. Not for killing Frank, but for assaulting a police officer and violating his probation. He was sentenced for eight months but got out in four.

“Overcrowding,” he told Ian as he sucked on a cigarette under the bleachers of the high school football field. 

“Good behavior,” Mandy contradicted, smirking when Ian asked her during lunch a few days later.

* * *

Summer was good for the most part; Mickey was getting more and more comfortable by the day, settling back into his job at the Kash and Grab with familiarity, spending most of his free time hanging around Ian. Their relationship was the strongest it had ever been, both platonically and not. 

They spent the better portion of their days working side by side at the store, exchanging quick, gritty banter, or simply coexisting in silence, Ian behind the register and Mickey leaning against the magazine stand by the door. After work, they usually walked back to their neighborhood together, passing a cigarette back and forth, cutting through poorly-lit side streets that were tinted orange from the street lamps. 

Some evenings they even stopped at the abandoned lot behind McInerney Park, climbing up six flights of stairs of one of the gutted, crumbling office buildings and sitting on the rooftop with their legs dangling over the side. The buzzing summer heat combined with the thick smoke from their cigarettes made the atmosphere completely unsuitable to wear anything other than a tank top or a thin t-shirt, meaning that Mickey’s grey sweater disappeared without a trace for several months.

On the days they weren’t at the store, they were either fucking around the abandoned lot where Ian had set up a makeshift obstacle course to keep his ROTC skills in check, or they were slumming like sun-soaked cats around the neighborhood digs. The times they weren’t together were spent at their respective houses, Ian always getting home right on time for late dinners with his siblings, then retiring to the living room to watch shitty 80s movies with Fiona and Jimmy-Steve and occasionally Veronica. 

He was happy. He didn’t realize it at first, but he was happy. He had a healthy family, a steady paycheck, a roof over his head, a fuck-buddy, a best friend -- hell, he was even happy to have Ned as a looming afterthought, always around the corner with some new knick-knack for Ian to play with.

Mickey teased him about it endlessly, shooting him unimpressed looks when Ned sauntered into the Kash and Grab and cracking awful jokes about “daddy-issues” whenever he could fit them in.

It even got to the point where one night, up on the rooftop of the abandoned building, Mickey rolled onto his side and flat-out asked, “Does his fuckin’ back crack when you’re going down on him?”

Ian, who had been laying with his shirt off and bunched under his head like a pillow, eyes skyward, craned his neck to look over at the other boy. “What?”

“Your sugar daddy.” Mickey’s eyebrows were raised playfully as he reached out and jabbed Ian in the side. “Do you guys have to stop every few minutes so he doesn’t bust a hernia from working his old-man muscles too hard?”

Ian rolled his eyes and hauled himself off his back, turning and swinging a leg over Mickey to pin him down. “Fuck off, he’s not that old.”

Mickey snickered crudely, but his body was surprisingly relaxed under Ian’s weight. “Oh, yeah? I bet you have to take it nice and easy in case his carpal tunnel starts acting up. You guys do it all soft and missionary-style?”

Ian bent over Mickey mirthfully, arms coming to frame his head so they were nearly nose-to-nose. “Why,” he taunted, dipping his hips so they ground suggestively against Mickey’s, “you want to join us?”

That effectively shut Mickey up. His face went red and his back arched as a half-assed “fuck you” slipped through his lips.

Ian grinned.

* * *

Things started winding down with Jimmy’s dad almost unconsciously after that. Ian found himself pulling further and further away from the older man until, finally, something snapped and Ned was the one scrambling to fix it. Things had been rocky during his divorce; he got sloppy, stumbling home drunk with his son, climbing into bed the wrong bed, accidentally groping Lip when he’d meant to grope Ian. It successfully tore the symbiotic relationship they’d built in half, leaving Ian to reluctantly pick up the pieces by robbing the guy’s house per his request. It was an odd task, sure, but one that Ian wasn’t willing to pass up.

Mickey kissing him for the first time in the driveway of Ned’s old house was simply a perk of doing business. 

Mickey getting shot in the driveway of Ned’s old house wasn’t.

* * *

He was fine, in the long run. His ass was just a little more tender than usual, but it was nothing Ian couldn’t adapt to. It was almost like a challenge; figuring out how to get both himself and Mickey off without hurting his injured cheek, coming up with new positions, improvising when they needed to. It was funny if nothing else. 

Well -- it was until Terry walked in on them. 

Things weren’t so funny after that.

* * *

The fifth time Ian saw him wearing The Sweater, he knew almost everything there was to know about Mickey Milkovich, including how colossal of an asshole his father was. 

He also knew that he was getting married. Because he’d knocked someone up.

“Who is it? Is it Angie Zago? Or some other piece of trash you screw so you can pretend I don’t matter to you?” Ian seethed, fists pulsing at his sides as he watched Mickey toss the bottlecap of whiskey across the empty room, the sound clattering and ringing in Ian’s ears.

He was drunk. Ian could see that. Not only could he tell by the numerous empty bottles that lay, stranded, in various areas of the abandoned floor, but by the way Mickey was slumped against the wall, under-eyes bruised with fatigue and limbs sprawled like deadweights. Not to mention the fucking sweater; zipped and padding him up like armor, the grey and beige stitching blending in surreptitiously with the stripped concrete behind him. It was like he was trying to sink into the moulding of the building, let the exposed plaster melt over him and make him disappear. 

It was a sore sight, and yet it was one that Ian couldn’t tear his eyes away from.

“The fuck, Gallagher?!” Mickey exclaimed irritably when Ian picked up an empty bottle of Jack Daniels from atop a windowsill and hurled it at the ground, not even wincing when the glass shattered and sprayed the walls like seafoam. He was really tired of hearing those words come from Mickey’s mouth.

“Oh, he speaks!”

When Mickey got up and stalked out of the abandoned building, feet unsteady, Ian followed; it seemed like he was always following, running, chasing after Mickey. It was getting old. 

“So, that’s it? We’re over? Your dad beats the shit out of us, and you’re just gonna get married? No conversation, nothing?”

Ian grabbed at his shoulder ( _stop walking away from me look me in the eye tell me how you really feel I can’t keep guessing you’re stretching me too thin please Mickey look at me look at me--_ ) and he was pushed off. He tried again, but it was futile. Everything was futile. 

“Get the fuck off me,” Mickey hissed, alcohol on his breath. 

“Oh, you wanna fag bash? Make you feel like a man?” Ian’s mind raced, thoughts blurring together and tangling violently. “Come on,” he sneered. “Go ahead. _Do it._ ”

Mickey punched him in the gut. Hard.

Ian saw stars, red and sweltering as pain blossomed in his abdomen. He keeled over, hugging himself as the feel of the other boy’s fist throbbed in his mind, on his skin. 

( _look at me goddamnit look at me in the eye and be honest for once in your goddamn life please look at me please_ )

Mickey staggered away, whiskey sloshing in his hand.

“You love me,” Ian said, voice strained against the uncomfortable heat pooling in his stomach. “And you’re gay.”

The older boy looked back at him, expression worn, eyes wild. 

“Just admit it,” Ian continued, back straightening as he took a step closer. He held Mickey’s gaze, determined not to let it escape. “Just this once, fucking admit it--”

Mickey punched him again, this time in the jaw. The impact of it sent Ian stumbling to the ground, gravel digging into the back of his neck like shards of glass. 

Mickey’s footsteps were wobbly and uncertain, but Ian could barely see him through the glaze of his eyes and the sharp pain clouding his vision. He just looked like a blurry, grey blob against a blurry, grey background. 

“Feel better now?” He coughed, chest contracting dangerously. “Feel like a man?” 

The next blow could have been lethal if Mickey wanted it to be. A hard, blinding kick to the side of his face made Ian writhe backward in pain, the taste of iron and blood washing through in his mouth and seeping out of the corner of his lips. He groaned, jaw going numb and limbs going slack in a fruitless battle against the stinging ache in his chest. 

( _use your words and not your fists you fucking coward I know you’re in there tell me you love me tell me the truth stop fucking lying to yourself stop lying to me please I know who you are_ )

“I feel better now,” Mickey said as he downed the rest of his whiskey and tossed the bottle aside before retreating, the blurry outline of his figure disappearing into the maze of overgrown grass and decaying office buildings.

That was the last time Ian saw the grey sweater for a very, very long while. 

He didn’t know how long he laid there on the gravel, alone, bleeding, staring up at the murky embolus of clouds above him. His fingers twitched and he touched his sore jaw, his broken skin, the split in his bottom lip. 

All of them were Mickey’s -- all the bruises, all the cuts, all the aches. They weren’t Ian’s, even though Ian wore them. They were someone else’s battle wounds. 

The words “I love you” died in Ian’s mouth before they could even reach the tip of his tongue.

* * *

Mickey got married. Ian enlisted. If things were moving fast before, now they were moving at fucking lightspeed.

* * *

He had a hard time pretending not to miss Mickey.

Life in Basic Training distracted him thoroughly, but only enough to push the blue-eyed Milkovich to the back of his head, not to dispel him completely. Nights in the barracks were the hardest part of Ian’s day-to-day, never getting more than four hours of sleep due to the restless currents of energy circulating through his blood, pouring out of his skin, seeping into his bones. It made him itchy and turbulent, knees bouncing impatiently while he stared at the bottom of the bunk above him, anxiously awaiting the morning bugle to blow. Some days he would slip out of bed in the fresh hours of darkness and pace the length of the communal bathroom, brain fizzing and overflowing with thoughts as his socked feet padded against the cool white tiles.

He met a guy in the barracks. His name was Joseph Manuel, a nineteen-year-old from upstate Indiana who had cocoa-brown eyes and tan skin. He was fun to be around; he matched Ian’s energy with precarious ferocity, sticking by him during boot camp and eating dinners with him in the cafeteria. They grew close quickly -- so close that they even got some strings pulled so they could share the same bunk on the first floor of their housing unit. 

Manuel was the one who dared Ian to sneak into the emergency aircraft hanger and kickstart the routers of a helicopter.

“Imagine how amazing it would be to see the base from above,” he’d envisioned over a plate of rice at dinner one evening, eyes sparkling with adrenaline as Ian shoveled down his own food across the table. “All those trees and open fields. It’d look like fucking _Little House on the Prarie_ from the sky, you know?”

Manuel may have dared him, but Ian didn’t need much convincing. He was all in the minute the idea had surfaced. 

So, one night, after the lights had been shut off and every trainee was snug under their army-green fleece blanket, he and Manuel slipped out of their bunk and snuck into the night through the loose window in the corner of the communal bathroom. 

When they first broke into the hanger, they thought they were alone; but a round-faced night guard caught them right as Ian’s fingers slipped under the consol and the copter tipped sideways, blades screeching against the concrete walls and sparking dangerously.

Manuel got away with the advantage of having not been inside the helicopter when the guard showed up; Ian wasn’t so lucky, having to high-tail it out of the hanger with the guard hot on his tail.

He went AWOL a day later, stealing an equipped survival pack from the base’s armory, commandeering a ride on the back of a food truck as it peeled away from the cafeteria, then hitchhiking his way to the nearest Greyhound station a few towns over. 

His first instinct was to head in the direction of home -- back to the grimy outskirts of Chicago, back to his family, back to _Mickey_. But he knew he had to be smarter. The Army was going to be on his tail now, and the first place they were going to come-a-knocking was the Gallagher house. 

His next best option also happened to be his next worst option.

* * *

“I just need to lay low for a couple weeks, tops. I swear I won’t be a bother, I can even take the floor if you want me to--”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Ian,” Ned’s voice filtered through the phone speaker tinnily. “I’ve got a guest room. 

“Are you sure? I really wouldn’t want to get in your way.”

“ _Ian,_ ” the older man sounded stern and borderline-motherly, “you can stay with me. Of course, you can stay with me. When should I be expecting you?”

Ian smiled into the receiver even though he knew Ned couldn’t see him. “Is tonight too soon?”

“Not at all.”

His smile widened. “Then you can expect me around ten.”

“I’ll be ready for you.”

Ian bid him a gracious farewell before hanging the payphone back onto its hook, listening to it click off before spinning around and sidling out of the booth. 

The soft smile on his face stayed put on the bus ride all the way back to Chicago, reflecting in the plexiglass window as he stared into the deep, dark, wintery night.

* * *

He got a job at a chain of nightclubs in Boystown. Ned bought him a new iPhone. Ned then kicked him out after a week. 

He’d been accommodating at first, letting Ian sleep half the daylight away in the guest room of his apartment, only raising an eyebrow when he came crashing through the door after work every night high off his ass on adrenaline or hallucinogens. However, Ian must have drawn his last straw when he came home one night in the company of three co-workers and one buff dude he didn’t recognize. They’d completely trashed the place, having drunken pillow fights, breaking the glass coffee table top with a swinging bottle of Jagermeister, then passing out until noon the following day. 

“Go home,” Ned said, dropping Ian’s green duffel bag at his feet after he’d herded the group of “unsavory characters” out of his apartment.

“I am home,” Ian teased back, covering up the drop in his stomach with an easy smile.

“No,” Ned shook his head, “you’re not. Call your family. They’re probably worried sick about you.”

“Doubt it.” When Ned gave him an incredulous look, he shrugged and jabbed his thumb at himself. “Middle child. They probably haven’t even noticed I’m gone.”

“Don’t say that. I’ve met your sister.”

Ian sniffed, grin dropping off his face like an anvil. Fuck, he hated when old people were right. 

He picked up his duffel bag and turned towards the front door.

* * *

“Mom?”

“What-- who is this? Hello?”

“Mom, it’s me.”

“Who?”

“Ian.”

“Ian… Ian! Oh! Oh my god! My baby, how are you!? Wha-- how did you get this number?”

“You haven’t changed it in years.”

“Oh! I guess you’re right. Ian, sweetie, how are you, is everything okay?!”

“It’s… yeah. Yeah, everything’s fine.”

“Good! That’s great! Oh, it’s so great to hear your voice, sweetpea. So great.”

“Yeah. Um. I was just-- where are you staying, right now? Are you in Chicago?”

“I am! Temporarily, at least. Oh my god, I met these kids who just got out of college -- they’re loaded, and they’re doing a grand tour of the country, and I’m gonna go with them to the East Coast for a few months. The East Coast! Isn’t that amazing!? You’d love these guys, I bet. We’re gonna see the Statue of Liberty and--”

“That sounds amazing, Mom, but I really need to know where you’re staying.”

“Oh, sure, okay. Can I ask why, honey?”

“I just… I need a place to crash. For a little while.”

“Okay! I’m leaving Illinois next week, but you’re welcome to come with us! The more the merrier, right?”

“That’s okay, Mom, I just need to fly under the radar for a bit. Can I stay with you?”

“Of course you can, baby.”

* * *

Lip and Debbie found him behind the bar at the White Swallow three weeks later. Mickey found him a week after that.

Mickey looked really, really good.

* * *

Ian didn’t know how long he’d been staying at the Milkovich house. His memories were fucked; he could barely recall anything from the past week that wasn’t glaring neon club lights or pulsating pop music. He’d even convinced himself at one point that seeing Mickey was either a hallucination or a shimmering fever dream he’d concocted in his mind out of broken pieces of wishful thinking. 

When he’d first woken up on the floor of Mickey’s bedroom, half-bundled underneath a moth-eaten throw blanket and an old bed sheet that smelled slightly like Goodwill, he’d panicked. 

He had grown used to waking up in strangers' apartments and hotel rooms; not because he was turning tricks (anymore) but because he enjoyed the afterparties of his regulars and went to almost every single one he was invited to. But waking up in the Milkovich house was like waking up in a childhood nightmare.

(“I want the gun back, Mickey.”

“Gallagher?!”

“The gun.”)

He blinked awake to the familiar rumble of the L-train outside the window, groaning against the harsh light pouring in through the curtains. He only registered where he was when he lifted his head from his pillow and caught sight of a familiar Dead Kennedys band poster taped to the wall across from him. 

(“Put some clothes on, you two look like a couple of fags.”)

He was alone, but he could tell that the queen-sized bed in the center of the room had been recently slept in. The comforter was bunched and thrown askew, pillows squashed with head-shaped dimples. 

Something clattered from what sounded like the kitchen, and Ian perked up even more. Someone else was home.

(“You are out of your mind. Have you seen that fucking ponytail? That’s a powerful ponytail, man, that’s bullshit. Seagal could totally kick Van Damme’s ass.”) 

The layout of the house was as familiar as the palm of his hand, so he hauled himself up and stumbled blearily into the kitchen wearing only his dark blue tank top and a pair of sweatpants that definitely didn’t belong to him. They were cuffed around the ankles and loose around the waist, and he knew intuitively that they were Mickey’s. They had to be.

“Hey! You’re awake!” 

Before he had a chance to react to the shrill sound of Mandy’s voice, he was being tackled into a bruising hug, limbs flailing as he was knocked back into the wall next to the doorway. 

“Good morning,” he laughed, tired but jovial, arms coming to clasp Mandy’s waist so he could lift her off her feet and hug her tighter.

Mandy giggled with delight, a sound he’d seldom heard coming from her. “Did you sleep okay?” she asked after he finished spinning her around and set her back down on the tiled floor. “We were going to put you on the couch but Jamie passed out on it like a deadweight last night. The floor wasn’t too uncomfortable, right?”

“It was fine,” Ian assured breezily, hands resting on her shoulders. He failed to mention that he’d been sleeping on a hardwood floor of an abandoned trap house since Ned had kicked him out. “Perfect, actually.”

“Sweet,” Mandy smiled, bright and welcoming. She looked good; different, definitely, but good. Her bangs were grown out and they framed her face well, cutting off just below her neckline. Her cheeks were rosy and flushed, but not from makeup; in fact, she wasn’t wearing any makeup at all. She looked a little skinnier than the last time he’d seen her, but it could also be an illusion caused by the large burgundy crew-neck hanging off her skeletal shoulders.

“What time is it?” Ian asked curiously after concluding his once-over, wondering if she’d just woken up, too.

Mandy stepped out of his embrace gently, moving back towards the steaming pot of coffee on the kitchen counter. “Almost three, I think.”

“In the afternoon?”

“Yeah.” She turned sideways and pulled a mug from a cupboard above the sink. “You hungry? We have some leftover pasta I can heat up for you.”

“I’m good,” Ian politely declined, leaning back against the wall and watching her amble around the kitchen. It was strangely domestic to watch her pop the lid of the coffee pot and pour it into a large mug that said _Don’t Talk to Me ~~Until I’ve Had My Coffee~~_ on the side. “Sorry for sleeping in so late.”

“Oh, no worries.” Mandy cupped her sleeved hands around the mug and turned back around, resting against the countertop so she could address Ian face-to-face. “I woke up late, too. Been picking up night shifts at the diner I work at since our electric bill is coming in soon, but it’s been a fucking terror on my sleep schedule.”

Ian raised his eyebrows. “You work at a diner?”

Mandy snorted into her mug. “ _Diner_ is a glorified title. It’s that run down waffle place off I-90, right across from a shit load of gas stations. You know it?”

“The squirrel place?”

“Bingo.”

“Jesus,” Ian laughed at the image of Mandy wearing one of those uniform hats that had stuffed squirrels glued to the top. 

Mandy shot him a pointed look. “You don’t get to judge me, Magic Mike. It pays well.”

Ian raises his hands in mock surrender. “Wasn’t judging, I promise.”

“Good.” 

They lapsed into silence, Mandy taking a long sip of her coffee while Ian’s gaze dragged over her, taking in her baggy pajama shorts and striped crew socks. She smiled softly at him as he tilted his head to look around the kitchen, scanning the familiar furniture and clutter that was piled around them. 

“I missed you.”

He looked back at her. Her eyes were round and sad even as she smiled. 

“I missed you too,” he said honestly, taking a small step closer.

“I should be mad at you,” she continued, running a finger over the lip of her mug thoughtfully. “That was a dick move, running off to the army. Using your brother’s name.” Her eyes flicked to his. “Mickey’s mad at you.”

Something stuttered in his chest. “He is?” Of course he was. 

“Yeah. I don’t blame him, though. He had to drag your coked-out ass all the way here from the North Side in the middle of the night.”

Ian swallowed, gaze dropping to the floor. He pretended to examine the off-white tilework, staring hard at the cracks of plaster between each ceramic square. “He didn’t have to do anything.”

Mandy kept her eyes on him pointedly, smile slipping into something more stoic. “Yes, he did. You know he did. You think he would have left you alone on the streets of Boystown in the middle of March?”

“It wasn’t that cold.”

“Right. And you weren’t blitzed up on every narcotic known to man.” Her signature sarcasm that Ian had known so well trickled back into her voice. He glanced up at her. 

“I had a place to go.”

“Bullshit.” Mandy shut him down, setting her mug on the countertop for dramatic effect. “You could barely stand straight. I was here the other night when he brought you home. You were in bad shape, Ian.” She paused, then added softly, “You probably still are.”

Ian had never stuck a needle into his chest, but he imagined this is what it would feel like if he ever did. When he didn’t say anything in response, she sighed.

“Why don’t you go get cleaned up, or something? You’ve been passed out for almost two days straight. Relax for a bit. The shower should still have hot water if Svetlana didn’t use it all up this morning.”

His shoulders immediately tensed at the name. He looked up. 

“You mean Mickey’s wife?”

Mandy nodded tentatively. “Yeah. You remember her?”

“Too well.”

She hummed. “Right. Well, you don’t have to worry about her for now, she’s at work with Mick, and they won’t be back ‘till dinner. Is that okay?”

Ian tried to shove down the ugly lump in his throat as he nodded back. “That’s fine.”

“Okay. Oh, that actually reminds me, he wanted to pick up the rest of your shit so you have more than just the skin on your back and that fucking tank top to call your own. Is there an address I can pass along to him? A room key, maybe?”

Ian grimaced internally at the idea of Mickey barging into the abandoned trap house where he had hidden out for weeks with Monica and a cranky old woman who went by the name “Goldie”, but he also yearned to have his duffel bag near him. His phone, his wallet, his clothes, his gear; all of it was still at the trap house. Fuck. 

“3058 West Erie,” he rattled off slowly.

“In West Town?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” Mandy hauled open a kitchen drawer and rummaged around in it for a few seconds before pulling out a Sharpie. She pulled the cap off with her teeth and wrote the address on the back of her hand, presumably to recite to Mickey later over the phone. “Thanks.”

Ian scratched the back of his neck awkwardly as she recapped the pen. “Sure.”

“Now go shower,” she waved at him before turning around and dropping her mug into the sink. “You reek, dude. You can use Kenyatta’s shower gel if you want, it smells like fucking heaven.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“No problem.” She paused, then glanced over her shoulder, expression softening again. “He cares about you, you know.”

Ian stopped in the doorway, confused. “Who, Kenyatta?”

She rolled her eyes. “No, moron. Mickey.”

There was that lump again, big and bulbous and uncomfortable. “Yeah,” he said after a long moment, quieter than intended. “I know.”

Mandy jutted her chin at Ian’s torso, prompting him to glance down at his outfit. “You can borrow some of his clothes so you don’t have to wear that slutty getup anymore. He won’t mind.”

Ian attempted to smile back at her. “Me? Slutty? Pot calling the kettle black, much?”

“I said what I said. _Go_.”

“Alright, alright, woman. I’m going.”

The shower wasn’t hot and the water pressure was about as ferocious as an injured butterfly, but Ian counted his blessings and settled underneath the lukewarm spray without complaint. The amount of half-empty shampoo bottles and worn-down bars of soap that lined the tub and sat in the niche underneath the showerhead was almost comical before Ian remembered that there had to be at least five or six adults living in this tiny, one-bathroom house.

He picked up the fanciest-looking shower gel -- a purple-tinted glass bottle with a silvery, milk-like substance swirling around the bottom -- and squirted it generously into his hands, running it over his skin, up the back of his neck, around his ears, down his chest. Mandy was right; it smelled amazing, like a field of lavender mixed with rich coconut butter, and it reminded him of the fancy travel-size soaps he would swipe from the ritzy hotel rooms he started frequenting with his regulars after work.

He stepped out of the shower feeling like a newborn baby, smooth and fresh and calm. But then he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror; the face that stared back wasn’t one he recognized.  
His freckles were gone in favor of a sickly-pale color that shell-shocked him; he had large, bluish bags under his eyes, and his lips were chapped and purple. There was a small sprinkle of bruises on one of his shoulders that he didn’t remember getting, and his ribs were unflatteringly visible through the skin on his torso. His feet were littered with blisters most likely from the poor-fitting Converse he’d found hanging on a telephone pole several weeks ago, laces knotted together as they swayed in the gentle wind.

He shivered. He _was_ in bad shape.

Too freaked out to stare at himself any longer, he wrapped a thin towel around his waist and slipped back into Mickey’s ( _and Svetlana’s_ his brain provided unhelpfully) bedroom. He didn’t know exactly where to start looking for clothes, given that the furniture had changed over the months Ian hadn’t been here. He tried the closet first, but it was stuffed with flowery silk dresses and polyester blouses that couldn’t belong to anyone but Svetlana. He then opened the rickety set of drawers parallel to the bed, fortunately coming across Mickey’s underwear drawer and swiping a pair of dark boxers before rifling around for some kind of undershirt. When he moved to the next drawer, his entire body stilled.

There, at the top of a mound of clothing, was a grey sweater. _The_ grey sweater.

“Fuck,” he murmured under his breath, the pads of his fingers ghosting hesitantly over the ribbed fabric. 

It was threadbare and faded, making Ian wonder exactly how much Mickey had worn in when he was gone. It wasn’t folded like the rest of the shirts in the drawer were, and one sleeve was hanging off the edge as if it had been tossed in halfheartedly. 

Ian swallowed. It would be so easy to just pick it up and slip it over his head, let himself drown in the fabric like Mickey always did, let the sleeves hang past his fingers, let the collar hug his neckline. Ian didn’t know why he was so infatuated with the fucking thing; it was just a sweater. Just a plain, boring sweater that had probably been bought at a Salvation Army or a Thrift Town. Lip probably had one just like it at home. 

And yet, there was something about it that drew Ian towards it magnetically, pulling on the strings of his mind, making his heart beat a little louder. From far away, it was nothing. It was just a block of grey, another ordinary piece of clothing that no one would bat an eye at. But up close, it was something entirely different. It was a little rough and frayed around the edges, but the material was soft and sturdy. Well-loved.

It was like Mickey.

(“ _No son of mine is going to be a goddamn AIDS monkey._ ”)

Ian abruptly closed the drawer and grabbed his dark blue tank-top from its crumpled place on the floor, trying not to wrinkle his nose as he shrugged it back over his head. 

Just so Mandy wouldn’t ask any questions, he grabbed a loose black hoodie that was hanging on a coat rack bolted to the wall and zipped it over the tank top. He then climbed back into the sweatpants that didn’t belong to him, tugging at the drawstrings so they fit a little better around his hips. He looked down and gave himself a quick once-over; he’d had better days, but it didn’t really matter. He’d be getting his own clothes back soon enough.

As he exited the bedroom and shut the creaky door behind him, he tried very hard not to think about how badly he craved the feeling of zipping himself up inside Mickey Milkovich’s fucking grey turtleneck sweater. 

_Not today,_ a little voice in his head chided. _Not today._

* * *

Two days later, Svetlana kicked him out.

“You sleep here tonight in this house, I kill you. I bash your orange head,” she threatened, hammer to Ian’s throat as he stood buck-naked in the Milkovich’s shower, water sprinkling down his back while he assured the agitated woman that he’d be gone by nightfall. He packed up swiftly after that, taking one last prolonged look at Mickey’s bedroom before pulling on his orange-lined winter coat.

Fiona was the only one home when he opened the foyer door to the Gallagher house, bag slung over his shoulder and beanie pulled down over his ears. She yelped with joy and laughed as she hugged him, telling him how much of a bastard he was for leaving without saying goodbye, recounting how worried she’d been when he’d only texted once to let her know he was alive.

He put on his happy, energetic front as he answered her questions about the Army and laughed at her dark-humored jokes concerning the blinking metal monitor around her ankle. But even as he slid onto one of the kitchen stools, smiley and uplifted by his older sister’s familiar demeanor, the wispy little demons in his head couldn’t stop nagging him with a question.

If everyone had been so worried about his whereabouts, why had no one come looking for him until the law got involved?

* * *

He was suddenly grateful for not putting on Mickey’s sweater, because later that evening, Mickey himself barged into the Gallagher boys’ room with a stale frown and the grey quarter-zip poking out around his neck from beneath his heavy winter jacket. 

Ian’s brain was running at sixty miles per hour, too fast to stop the pencil in his hands from scribbling nonsense onto the yellow-paged journal he’d found wedged between his mattress and the wall earlier, but not fast enough to stop him from glancing up at the other man in acknowledgment. 

Mickey had only just opened his mouth and started to goad him out of his adrenaline-induced poetry session, asking him why he’d left the house, when Ian’s siblings came careening through the door. They showered him with boisterous affection and enthusiasm at his return, giggling and asking questions that overlapped one another. 

When the hugs and chatter eventually slowed down, Carl asked point-blank why Ian had joined the Army in the first place; Ian simply tilted his head and said, thoughtfully, “Relationship issues.”

Mickey turned silently rigid next to him. Lip gave him an omniscient, scrutinizing look before politely herding Carl and Debbie back downstairs for dinner so he and Ian could get some privacy.

“You coming back?” 

Ian sat back down on his bed once the door clicked shut, carefully avoiding the pile of loose-leaf paper he’d already written on and tore out of the journal. “Depends,” he said, propping his elbows on his knees and leaning forward to give Mickey a pertinent stare. “Will you suck my dick whenever I want?”

“Fuck _off_.”

Ian made a small “hmph” sound under his breath and shifted his elbows, twisting to pick his journal back up again and clicking his ballpoint pen. If Mickey was going to be difficult, so was he. Irritability was a two-way street.

A long moment passed. He could feel Mickey’s eyes burning into the top of his head, scanning the way he bent at the waist, watching his fingers contract around the pen. For a brief moment, Ian couldn’t help but laugh internally at the irony; a few years ago, back when he was a freshman, the roles had been reversed. Ian used to be the one staring at Mickey as he wrote, slumped in his desk at the back of his second-period classroom, not the other way around. Oh, how the tables had turned.

Mickey had probably been writing real things, though; not the bumbling nonsense that was sprouting out of Ian’s fingers as his pen whipped across the page. His thoughts were spinning in a whirlwind of color, moving so fast that he couldn’t tell them apart, couldn’t put them into words. He would scribble down the beginning of a sentence, the inklings of an idea, then immediately get distracted and move his hand to a different part of the page, digging his pen into a new, untouched area of paper. 

“Whatcha writin’?” came a low mumble.

“Stuff,” Ian answered curtly, not taking his eyes off the journal. He made a vague gesture with his hand. “Notes, ideas.”

Another long moment. Ian’s ears roared with the sound of his ink scraping across the textured paper. 

“I’ll do it.”

He looked up. Mickey’s arms were folded, fingers digging into his opposite sleeves as he gazed gravely down at Ian. 

“Do what?”

Mickey’s jaw shifted and he sniffed, breaking eye contact. “Don’t make me say it, asswipe--”

“Suck my dick.” Ian’s lips quirked up, the traitors. His hand stilled on the journal as he adjusted his attention completely to Mickey, forcing the tornado of thoughts to go ravage the back of his brain and not the front. “Whenever I want.” 

Mickey glared, but Ian could see through him. 

Ian had been seeing through him for years. He wasn’t going to stop now. 

Tiny trumpets of victory erupted in his head as something in Mickey visibly broke and he uncrossed his arms, stepping poignantly towards the bed and dropping to his knees. The look he gave Ian as he undid his belt was something along the lines of _you owe me one_ and _you’re fucking ridiculous_ , but Ian didn’t care. His mouth stretched into a grin as Mickey’s expert fingers undid his fly and cleared away the fabric of his jeans. 

By the time Mickey’s lips enclosed him, his head had tipped back with reverence and all the blood in his body had pooled in his groin. He tried emphatically to keep his hands by his sides, resting lightly on the bed, but they betrayed him by flying up and knotting into Mickey’s slicked-back hair to hold him steady. 

Fuck, he’d missed this. 

“Hey,” he gasped out after a minute, tone softening, fingers clenching at the base of the other boy’s skull, “hang on a second.”

Mickey drew back, nonplussed as he craned his neck to look up at Ian and swiped his thumb across his mouth to wipe away a droplet of saliva. His eyes were round and questioning and so, _so_ blue, and Ian thought that he’d missed them most of all. Out of every part of Mickey’s body, he’d missed his fucking eyes the most. Fuck, he was sappy. 

He silently thanked whatever god or goddess that was looking down on him at that moment that he wasn’t standing; if he was, his knees would have buckled and turned to absolute mush by now. 

“Get up here,” he breathed, tugging at Mickey’s hair less-than-gently. 

Mickey made no complaints, back straightening as he met Ian in the middle, lips crashing together like asteroids in space. 

Ian had never understood those characters in rom-com movies when they waxed about how kissing the love of their life was like coming home after a long day of work. Now, after not getting to do this for months -- not getting to cup his hand around Mickey’s neck, not getting to latch onto Mickey’s bottom lip, not getting to bump his nose against Mickey’s, not getting to run his fingers down the stitching of Mickey’s sweater -- _now_ he understood. 

And as Mickey pushed him back onto the tiny, squeaky mattress, elbows unceremoniously hitting the walls and feet sticking awkwardly off the end of the bed, Ian knew he was home. 

His stack of papers and journal half-filled with ludicrous, nonsensical thoughts slid off the duvet and landed on the floor with a light _thunk_. For the first time in weeks, he was able to ignore them.

* * *

Ian was surprised how long it took him to figure it out. 

He was used to being the observer of the family; he noticed everything, but said nothing. He could read people like open books if he knew them enough, taking note of the little things they did, like their tone of voice or the mannerisms they adopted and exuded. 

Like, for example, he noticed over the years that whenever Fiona was feeling overworked (which was most of the time, let’s be honest) she would forget to tie her hair back and let it frizz out around her head, a messy and wild halo of brown curls. And when Lip was hiding something, he would play with his hands subconsciously, pulling at his fingers or cracking his knuckles absently while his face stayed stoic. Even Liam; despite his age, Ian noticed whenever the little boy was sad or agitated, he would play with one toy -- a little purple zebra that was missing an eye -- and not let go of it until he felt better or until someone took it from him. 

Given all this -- given how much Ian noticed little things, little quirks that his family had -- it was almost embarrassing how long it took him to figure out his boyfriend’s biggest, most obvious quirk: 

Mickey used his wardrobe to express his feelings.

Maybe he didn’t notice because he was too blinded by other aspects of Mickey, like the color of his eyes or the way he made Ian’s heart ram against his chest whenever he stepped into a room. He was an extremely distracting feat in Ian’s life, and it was no secret. But now, after nearly two years of being with him off-and-on, he was starting to understand.

Mickey probably did it unconsciously, given that he wasn’t a fashionista in any sense of the word; in fact, he’d really only learned how to groom himself recently, but that didn’t make the validity of it less meaningful. But thinking back on it, Ian realized that Mickey had always expressed his moods through his clothing, even if it was unintentional.

Whenever he wore his favorite black tank-top, the one with the sleeve-holes that were cut below his ribcage, Ian noticed that he was confident and his tongue was extra-sharp. When he wore his dark grey lightly-striped button-up, he was taking something seriously or trying to make a good impression. When he wore his tan graphic t-shirt with an obscure band name printed on the front, he was feeling lazy or at ease. 

When he wore his grey zip-up sweater, he was feeling low. Really low.

So low that Ian couldn’t help but notice anytime the stitched-up piece of clothing was dawned. So low that it made Ian’s heart ache distantly every time he saw the sweater. It made him ache even more thinking about how long Mickey had owned the sweater, and therefore how long he’d been using it as armor to cover up whatever wound he was sporting. Mentally or physically.

The first time Ian had seen it, they’d been in middle school -- fucking _middle school_. How long had Mickey had it before? When had it become such a comfort blanket for him? Ian had a list of questions as long as the East Coast, but he never asked them. Never spoke up no matter how much the curiosity was killing him. 

Instead, he did the next best thing; he started wearing the sweater himself.

The idea struck him one afternoon when Mickey was preoccupied with the Rub n’ Tug and he’d left Ian at home, curled underneath an ungodly amount of blankets on the Gallagher’s living room couch and watching _Die Hard 2_ while Liam sat on the rug in front of the television and messed with a coloring book. 

For some reason, despite the four different throw-blankets and quilts he’d piled on top of himself, Ian couldn’t seem to get warm; he’d tried taking a nap to get some rest before work at the club that evening, but there were tremors running through his muscles, and his blood felt cold while his skin felt hot. He must have gotten some sort of 24-hour head cold from one of his coworkers or regulars, or really anyone who came to the club. Sanitation wasn’t the Fairy Tail’s forte, so to speak. 

“Is it freezing in here, or what?” he eventually asked out loud, teeth chattering a little as he pulled a blanket farther up to bracket his chin. 

Liam looked up at him all innocent-eyed and confused. “No,” he replied slowly, the word slurring in his mouth. He still wasn’t much of a talker.

“Okay,” Ian ceded, “it must just be me, then. I’m gonna grab a sweater or jacket or something from upstairs. You need anything?”

His little brother shook his head, refocusing on the coloring book.

“Okay, bud. Be right back.”

Ian (regretfully) slithered out from underneath his cocoon and plodded up the stairs in search of something warm and preferably long-sleeve to slip over his head. He darted into his bedroom and opened up the top drawer to the communal dresser next to his bed, and immediately froze.

There, on top of all of Ian’s stuff, was Mickey’s grey sweater.

Furrowing his brow, Ian muttered to himself, “How did you get in here?”

Unsurprisingly, the sweater did not dignify him with a response.

Tentatively, he reached out and picked it up, the knit material soft and pliant against his fingertips. For a brief moment, it almost felt like he was trespassing on private property or violating some kind of law as the fabric slipped into his hands. But when had Ian ever had moral qualms about trespassing? 

A film reel of snapshots ran through his mind as he nudged his drawer shut and stood still, staring at the sweater in his hands; he thought of every single scenario he could remember seeing Mickey wear the sweater. The playground, English class, the Kash and Grab, the abandoned office park. 

Every time he’d seen it, Mickey had been low. He’d been sad or angry or angsty, and he’d almost never provided Ian with a verbal explanation as to why. He’d just worn the sweater. 

Ian didn’t want him to feel low. That was the last thing in the world he wanted. So, in a spontaneous burst of inspiration, he unfolded the sweater and tugged it over his head. 

He wore it for the rest of the day, snuggling even further under his pile of blankets and burying his nose in the collar of grey fabric. He figured that if Mickey was going to wear it every time he was feeling down in the dumps, it might as well smell like something comforting. Something that would put him at ease.

Something like Ian.

* * *

“I just want everybody here to know, I’m fucking gay.”

Ian’s fingers froze on the door handle and he could feel something in his chest drop to his toes as he looked at Mickey -- looked at _his boyfriend_ \-- standing in the middle of the hazy, crowded Alibi, arms outstretched. His eyebrows were arched high as if he was daring someone to say something, daring someone to make a move, but Ian could see the uncertainty in his face. 

Typically, no one would even begin to try to compare Mickey Milkovich to a bird; he was an ox if anything, maybe a fucking hyena on a good day. But in that moment, face illuminated blue by the buzzing neon Budweiser sign hanging behind the bar, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, feet shifting on the wooden slats of the floor, he was a bird. Small in size, but determined in stature; ready to open his wings at the first sign of danger, but strong enough to stand his ground and look that danger in the face. To look his father in the face.

The room had gone quiet. 

“A big ol’ mo,” he finished tightly, eyes darting around. “Just thought everybody should know that.”

The amount of emotion in his eyes when he finally looked at Ian from across the sea of drunkards and partygoers was enough to send him sprawling into the nearest grave. He couldn’t tell if the burning feeling in his chest was something mending together, or something tearing apart. 

“You happy now?”

Okay. Tearing. Definitely tearing. 

Half of Ian was engulfed with an overwhelming amount of affection, admiration, love, and _respect_ for what Mickey had just done. The feeling made him want to charge across the bar and tackle him to the ground and kiss him absolutely senseless in front of everyone, in front of his father, his wife, his son. He wanted to tear that stupidly good-fitting collared shirt off and kiss every inch of his chest, his stomach, his shoulders. He wanted to run his hands through his ebony-black head of hair and bite at his earlobe and whisper _I love you_ over and over again until Mickey could finally understand just how deeply, utterly gone Ian was for him. 

But the other half of Ian veered perilously in the other direction; that half wanted to shriek at Mickey, yell at him for being stupid enough to out himself in front of his (armed, probably) father and the other two-dozen crooked-toothed cronies that crowded the bar. He wanted to shake him and ask him _why, why did you listen to me, you stupid fuck, you know I’d never break up with you for not coming out, you know I didn’t mean it, you know your safety is the most important thing to me, you have to know that, you know that I would have been in your bed even if I had left, you_ know _that_.

His mind was splitting down the middle trying to figure out what his next move was going to be. Was he going to step forward? Say something? Stay put? Start clapping? Smile? Laugh it off?

It turns out, he didn’t have to decide; Terry decided for him by flipping a table and lunging towards Mickey with enough anger to cloud the goddamn sun. 

Long story short: Mickey broke a tooth, Ian broke a rib, and Terry broke probation. 

As they watched the old man get shoved into the backseat of a blaring police cruiser, the fear that clawed at Ian’s brain for Mickey’s sake began to shrink away. and suddenly all he could feel was pride. When he looked at the other boy’s bloody, bruised face, he started to understand why there was a whole parade named after it; pride was a good fucking feeling.

* * *

_What goes up must come down,_ a voice panged in Ian’s head, one that sounded surreptitiously like his middle-school science teacher.

He wasn’t sure who’d said it first; was it Neil Degrasse Tyson? Galileo? Isaac Newton? Fuck, he didn’t know. It didn’t matter. Someone had said it, and that someone -- whoever they might be -- was starting to annoy the fuck out of Ian. 

Bipolar disease wasn’t like gravity at all. They had nothing in common. 

Gravity was always present; it never went away. It would take the force of a thousand planets and a million stars to disrupt Earth’s gravitational field, so as far as Ian knew, it was going to stay put for a long time. 

Bipolar disease was nothing like that. 

Monica was nothing like that. 

Monica probably didn’t know what the definition of “staying put” was. She moved with the wind, coming in unexpectedly even though the forecast didn’t predict her, knocking everything in her path a little off-balance, leaving things messier than when she arrived. 

Gravity was reliable. She wasn’t. Bipolar disease wasn’t. 

“He’s not going to some fucking nuthouse. You hear me?”

Mickey’s voice rang loud through the paper-thin walls of the Milkovich house. Ian dug his face further into his pillow. _I can hear you,_ he thought bitterly, thinking about the way his sister had hissed at Mickey in the doorway earlier, the way Mickey’s voice was raised, how broken their words were. 

They all sounded like they were underwater when they spoke to Ian, words slurring together, syllables falling short from their mouths; but as soon as he was alone, he could hear everything. He didn’t want to, but he did. 

“He stays here. He’s staying with me.”

He never realized how all-consuming guilt could be.

* * *

Colors dulled. Volumes turned down. Temperatures fell below freezing, but Ian couldn’t stop sweating.

Sweat, shiver, sweat, shiver, sweat, shiver, sweat, shiver, sweat, shiver. 

Mickey started to wear his grey sweater every single day. Ian started to understand why.

It was replacing the warmth Ian couldn’t provide for him. The warmth that Ian felt like he could never provide for him. He was glad Mickey had the sweater; he deserved that warmth more than anyone in the entire world.

He deserved so, so much, and Ian would never be able to give him all. 

Every day, without fail, Ian woke up alone with the sheets pulled up to his chin, and a plate of steaming french toast, eggs, or hashbrowns would be teetering on the nightstand. The plates always smelled delicious, but the mere thought of food made Ian want to vomit, so he never touched them. Never even gave them a second look.

It took him over a week to work up enough energy to get up and shower; even then, Mickey had to slide an arm around his waist and help him into the tub so his feet wouldn’t give out from under him. At that point, it wasn’t even the exhaustion; his muscles had given up on him. His exercise routine now consisted of walking the distance to and from the bathroom a few times a day, never venturing past the hallway to the living room, always returning back to the double bed in Mickey’s room. There was a long indent the size of his body that ran down the right side of the mattress; it hurt to look at, but nevertheless, he returned to it.

Each night, Mickey seemed to fall asleep farther and farther away from Ian’s spot, inching closer and closer to the edge of the bed until, finally, Ian couldn’t take it. He was scared when it first started happening; he got worried that he was chasing Mickey away, making him a little more resentful every day, making him hate Ian. Then he realized that Mickey wouldn’t be cooking for him in the mornings if he hated Ian -- he wouldn’t be filling up the water bottle that always sat at the foot of the bed, he wouldn’t be squirting shampoo into his hands and washing Ian’s hair when Ian couldn’t do it himself, he wouldn’t be doing any of that if he hated Ian. 

He was giving Ian _space_. Fuck.

Ian didn’t want space. He didn’t know what he wanted.

When Mickey climbed into bed one night a painfully-calculated distance away from him, he thought _fuck it_ and rolled over, hands grasping blindly for the feel of Mickey’s body. When his fingers finally slid over the familiar knit pattern of his grey sweater, he shifted closer. Mickey tensed. 

“Ian?” he spoke softly, hand coming to rest on top of the arm Ian threw across his stomach. “You good?”

Without answering, Ian tugged at the sweater. Mickey got the memo and scooted closer, taking the sheets with him. The minute he was close enough, Ian draped himself over Mickey like a starfish, forehead burrowing into the space beneath his collarbones, calf hooking around his legs. 

Mickey relaxed softly, melting into Ian’s touch, circling his own arms around the redhead’s waist. Ian breathed him in, and it was like surfacing from the dark, watery depths of a swimming pool.

“I got you,” Mickey whispered into the dark, grip tightening as he placed an affectionate, grounding kiss into the top of Ian’s head.

 _I love you,_ Ian wanted to say. His lips refused to open, so he simply burrowed closer, folding into Mickey’s arms like he belonged in them. 

When he woke up the next morning, he wasn’t alone. Mandy knocked faintly on the door and brought in a plate of scrambled eggs.

Ian untangled himself from his boyfriend, still snoring peacefully into their shared pillow, and began to eat.

* * *

He didn’t like to think of it as “getting better”. 

He thought of it more in terms of re-emerging from a large body of water, shaking his damp hair and brushing off the sand on the soles of his feet. It was like he’d gone on an emotional surfing trip, where he’d been enthusiastic to dive into the water and wade out as far as possible so he could catch a wave on his surfboard. And when he did catch it, it was magnificent; dangerous, terrifying, and exhilarating all at the same time, but utterly magnificent. Then he must have lost his footing, or the wave must have crashed prematurely. Because one minute he was on top of the world, and the next, he was underwater, tumbling and flailing and suffocating. 

Coming out of an “episode” (as Lip so gracefully called them) was like washing up on a seashore, banged and bruised in some places, but willing to dry off and try again later. It was a flawed analogy given that Ian had never actually been on a surfboard before, but it was the best, simplest way he could put it. 

Still, even once he was safely out of the water, bundled up and dry to the bone, it hurt him to look at the sea. To watch the rolling, crystal-colored waves swell and surge against the beds of soft, warm sand where children played freely and couples lounged lazily. It hurt him to watch his very own family members wade in the same water as him, in the same direction, and somehow manage to stay afloat. 

Why was he the only one getting pulled beneath the surface against his will? Why was he the only one getting caught in the undertow?

* * *

No one answered his questions. They didn’t really matter.

Things were normal during the summer until they weren’t. Before he knew it, Ian was back on the surfboard, kicking his arms and legs, pushing as far as he could out to sea. There was a wave coming; he could feel it in the vibration of his bones, in the corners of his brain, in the Technicolor hue of the sky.

He didn’t know that wave was going to turn out to be a fucking tsunami.

* * *

“Don’t touch me.”

The words pierced Ian harder than anything he’d ever felt, a knife lancing through his gut and making bile rise to his throat. He almost had to stop himself from wrapping his arms around his middle and squeezing to make the sudden, sharp pain go away.

“Fuck’s up with you?” he asked faintly, anxiety clawing at the edges of his vision as his gaze flickered across his boyfriend’s face.

When Mickey took a step back from him and almost bumped into the tattered living room sofa, the knife twisted in Ian’s abdomen.

“You need to pack your shit,” Mickey said, face straining into something entirely unreadable; scared and angry, yes, but there was something else. Something Ian had never seen on Mickey’s face. He couldn’t focus enough to put a finger on it.

Instead, he laughed, dry and aporetic. When Mickey didn’t immediately join him and say “ _just kidding!_ ”, his face fell further. 

“What?” He hated how crippled the word sounded coming out of his mouth.

Hurt. That was the emotion on Mickey’s face. Hurt. 

“You’re sick,” he said, words curt and stinging as his bloodshot eyes mowed down Ian’s gaze. It was like he was staring into the face of a ghost; unrecognizable, terrified. “You need help. I gotta take you to a hospital, Ian.”

Ian’s fingers went numb and his vision turned red. Betrayal was not a pretty color on Mickey.

* * *

Florida. The Sunshine State. 

Beaches and tequila and palm trees and the Everglades and Disney World. That’s what Ian needed. 

He didn’t need mental health assessments or hospitals or medication. He didn’t need anything like that. He was fine. He just needed the sun on his skin, the smell of the ocean. That’s it. Nothing more.

He turned his ringer off so he wouldn’t hear the buzz of Mickey’s endless phone calls, keeping his eyes on the sprawling highway in front of him and his fingers tapping on the steering wheel to the beat of “Sweet Home Carolina”.

He was fine. Yevgeny was fine. Everything was _fine._

* * *

Everything was cold. 

The blinding kind of cold, the kind of cold that’s so cold it’s almost hot. Searing hot. 

He’d been handcuffed and arrested before, but he’d never been in a holding cell. It was kind of funny when he thought about it. ( _I’m losing my holding cell virginity. In Indiana, of all places._ )

He smiled to himself, but he knew it was grim. How could it not be?

He’d just wanted to see some palm trees.

* * *

The drive back to Chicago was a little less than three hours long. Ian was sitting in the back seat of Lip’s car, squished between Mickey and Carl, head hanging low, eyes burning holes into the knees of his jeans. 

It was eerily silent. Carl was staring determinedly out the window. Lip’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel. Debbie was cradling a sleeping Yevgeny in her lap. Mickey was--  
Mickey.

Mickey hadn’t said a word to him since the barred metal doors had opened into the waiting room of the Terre Haute police station. He’d just slid his arms around Ian’s shoulders, holding him close, holding him steady. He wasn’t angry or scared or passive like Ian was afraid he might be. 

He was sad. Just sad. Nothing more, nothing less. 

Ian closed his eyes and let his head droop even more as the car rattled over a bump in the road. He was such a fucking failure. How he’d managed to screw up the best thing in his life in less than twenty-four hours, he didn’t know. How he’d managed to screw up his relationship with Mickey, with Mickey’s son, with his own family; he’d seen the look on Debbie’s face when he came out of the holding area. She was afraid of him. Genuinely afraid.

He’d never intended to hurt anyone. That was _never_ his intent, ever. 

But the look in Mickey’s eyes that morning Ian had come back from work with six-hundred dollars in his pocket -- the disgust, the anguish, the hurt -- it was too much for Ian to handle. 

“You’re sick,” he’d said. Ian hadn’t believed him. He still didn’t.

He wasn’t sick, he was just-- lost. He was lost. There’s no prescription for being lost.

He fell asleep in the car, but not really; his head was still swimming in and out of consciousness, light still pitter-pattered against his eyelids. At one point, his head unintentionally lolled onto Mickey’s shoulder. Mickey didn’t push him off, though, so he stayed put, cheek digging into the other boy’s solid neckline. It was grounding and warm, everything the holding cell hadn’t been. 

They had been driving for an hour before Mickey finally slid his hand onto Ian’s thigh, a silent reassurance that he was still there.

(“I got you.”)

* * *

“We need to get him committed even if he doesn’t wanna go.”

Mickey’s voice seeped in through Ian’s barely-awake brain. He didn’t know how long he’d been drifting in and out of sleep, but he kept his eyes closed and his face tucked against Mickey’s shoulder.

“Just… Tell them that he kidnapped the kid, right? They have to take him. There’s gotta be some kinda, like, ‘danger to others’ law, right?”

Lip’s voice came next, fatigued and burnt-out. “No, it could be complicated.”

“Well if he won't go, I’m just gonna call the fucking cops on him. Tell _them_ that he stole the baby. They’ll put him away for a while.” 

Ian’s heart clenched. A beat passed. 

“Least he’ll be getting some kind of fucking help.”

_(I don’t need help, I’ve got you. You’ve got me. Remember? Do you remember that, Mick? I’m family. I’m your family. I don’t need anyone else but you.)_

“You did okay, Mickey,” Lip’s voice cut in. “Hell, you tried. That’s a lot more than most people would do.”

_(You’re not most people.)_

Mickey fell silent again. The hand he had on Ian’s thigh tensed and his thumb started to glide back and forth, back and forth across the fabric of Ian’s jeans. Ian blinked his eyes open softly. Through the windshield, the sun was rising in a brilliant array of orange and purple. 

Lip didn’t stop driving when they passed through the familiar rows of dilapidated houses and overgrown parking lots of the Back of the Yards. Instead, he kept driving, up the I-90, over the Chicago River, through North Lawndale, and past Cicero. 

Ian didn’t understand why they hadn’t stopped until they were pulling into the visitor’s lot of Hartgrove Hospital; the closest mental health clinic to the Gallagher house in all of Cook County.

* * *

“Is that the way out?”

“What are you doing over here? Back in line, you hear me? You wanna be sedated again?”

“Mickey’s waiting for me. And Yevgeny. I need to see Fiona.”

“I’ll ask you one more time; you want me to sedate your dumb turkey-ass?”

* * *

Three days. Seventy-two hours. Four-thousand three-hundred and twenty minutes. That’s how long he was in the hospital. Three days, two nights. 

Three days where all his thoughts simmered in his head like an undercooked pot of pasta, bubbling against the surface but not quite boiling over. Three days where everything was white and bland and mundane. Three days where he had to wear the same itchy yellow t-shirt because yellow was a “stimulating” color and a “happy” color.

Yellow was a stupid color.

Three days where all he wanted to do was slip his head and his arms into Mickey’s grey sweater. He wanted to feel that security, that comfort, that hope that was so adamant in the fabric of that goddamn article of clothing. He just wanted Mickey’s smell, Mickey’s warmth, Mickey’s voice. _Mickey, Mickey, Mickey._

Grey was a happy color. Not yellow.

* * *

The woman sitting across the desk was flipping through a manila folder that had to be thick as Ian’s thumb. He stared at it, unblinking.

“I know you don’t want to hear this, Ian, but you show signs of bipolar disorder,” she said, her words watered-down and alien. He focused on a point near her collarbone so he wouldn’t have to look at the folder anymore. “With proper medication, it can be managed, but you need to participate in your treatment.”

Isaac Newton can kiss Ian’s ass. 

( _I’m not Monica._ )

* * *

Mickey wasn’t waiting for him.

Lip and Fiona were, and as much as Ian appreciated them for showing up and standing there in the psychiatrist’s office with open arms, the expressions on their faces were disheartening. Uncomfortable.

Fear and pity: the two most useless emotions in the world. And yet, here they were, in the flesh. 

Mickey wasn’t there when he got home, either; it seemed like everyone in the world except Mickey was there. Debbie, Liam, Sammi, and even Frank greeted him with plastered smiles and chiding voices that made him feel like a little kid. Not in a good way.

He excused himself to go lie down upstairs despite the offers of food and water that chorused from his siblings. He was too uneasy and too tired to do anything other than sleep; he’d gotten close to zero hours of rest at the hospital, even under the sedatives, and his body felt like it was supporting itself on toothpicks instead of legs. 

As he hauled himself up the stairs, he pretended not to hear Debbie’s comment: “He’s totally Monica.”

* * *

“ _Alright, shithead, this is like the two-hundredth time I’m calling and you’re not picking up. I’m starting to get fucking homicidal. Call me the fuck back, Ian. I’m worried about you… I love you. Call me back._ ”

The voicemail ended with a deafening beep. Ian stared at the phone in his hands like he’d never seen it before, the cool metal bleeding into his clammy hands as they trembled ever-so-slightly.

He hadn’t meant to listen to every single one of Mickey’s voicemails he’d previously ignored during his road-trip; he was just trying to delete some of them, clear up the storage on his phone so he could download the soft indie instrumental album he’d been listening to for hours on repeat, slowly burning up the little data he had left in an attempt to ease him to sleep.

_(I’m worried about you. I love you.)_

He dropped the phone on the bed and tugged out his earbuds. 

The bedroom was dark as he sat up, only the tiniest sliver of light spilling in through the hallway from the crack on the bottom of the door. There were faint, breathy snores undulating from the bed in the corner where Liam was conked out. Careful not to wake him, Ian peeled his sheets back and slipped out of bed, sliding his feet into a pair of fuzzy, moth-eaten socks before nudging the door open and padding into the hallway.

The kitchen lights were, surprisingly, still on as he emerged from the staircase and found himself blinking against the bleak yellow gleam of the overheads. Even more surprising was the figure of his older sister sitting hunched at the dining room table, mane of hair tied back in a loose ponytail and ballpoint pen twiddling in her fingers.

She looked up at the sound of Ian’s feet hitting the tile, and a small albeit confused smile brushed her face. “Hey, bean,” she greeted drowsily, sitting up in her chair. “Thought you were asleep?”

Ian tried to smile back, but he could feel it fall flat. “Nah, ‘m having a hard time. My mind’s just kinda…” He twirled his hands in a vague gesture around his temples in explanation. Before Fiona could open her mouth and ask him to elaborate, he shuffled towards the counter and changed the subject. “Whatcha doing?”

“Legal bullshit for Carl’s arrest.” She sighed and clicked the pen shut, dropping it on the table and watching it roll across the display of legal documents piled in front of her. “Who knew being the guardian of an underage drug-runner would involve so much paperwork?”

Ian huffed in amusement at the thought of his criminal younger brother shut up in a holding cell of the nearest police department, facing a growing plethora of charges thanks to his genius idea of strapping several pounds of his product to Sammi’s overweight son. “I mean, it was gonna happen eventually, right? Carl getting arrested.”

Fiona shot him a tired look. “I was holding out hope he’d make it to eighteen. That way I wouldn’t have to fill out all this crap.” She waved her hand exasperatedly over the papers.

“Wishful thinking, Fi,” he snorted, leaning back against the counter and crossing his ankles. “ _I_ didn’t even make it to eighteen.”

Something in the atmosphere shifted after the words left his mouth. Fiona’s smile turned grim. “Yeah,” she concurred quietly, “I guess you’re right.”

They lapsed into silence; it wasn’t awkward, but it wasn’t comfortable either. Ian dropped his eyes to the floor.

( _I love you_ , Mickey’s strained, static-y voice rang in his head.)

“You want some hot chocolate or something?” Fiona asked after a long moment, breaking easily into his thoughts. “I think there’s a packet of Swiss Miss in the cupboard over the microwave. Sheila brought some over a while ago and forgot to take the box home. Might warm you up a little, help you sleep?”

Ian glanced back up at her; her face was sad but hopeful, eyes wide and wet under the unflattering light of the bulb over the dining table. It was a little strange of her to offer hot chocolate in the middle of summer, but he didn’t feel like turning her down. She clearly needed to do something with her hands; needed to lighten the mood, take care of someone without getting her toes too deep in the mud. 

“Sure,” he nodded. “Couldn’t hurt.”

Something like relief washed over her face, and she pushed herself out of the dining chair. “Great,” she smiled, seeming to forget entirely about the stack of legal documents that needed her attention. “I’ll start the kettle, can you grab a few mugs? Oh, and the milk? Hopefully it hasn’t gone bad yet.”

Ian did as she said, opening the fridge and plucking the half-empty gallon out of its place in the door, following it up with two ceramic mugs that were leftover souvenirs from Fiona’s job working at Worldwide Cup. As he watched her amble about the kitchen with practiced ease, adjusting the stovetop and rummaging through the cupboards in search of the hot chocolate powder, things almost felt normal again.

Almost.

Ian passed her the milk and the mugs as soon as the kettle began to whistle gently. She thanked him and tore open the packets of chocolate powder, dumping them into their respective cups then stirring the hot water and milk in. 

“So,” she started, tapping her stirring-spoon once against the rim of Ian’s steaming mug before handing it to him. “No Mickey today?”

Ian almost froze as his hands closed around the warm liquid, but he blinked before he could disorient. “No. No Mickey.”

“Sorry to hear that.” No, she’s not. “You think he’s a dead end?”

_(I love you. Call me back.)_

Ian cupped both hands around his mug and diverted his gaze from his sister. “I don’t know.”

“Mm.” Fiona hummed knowingly in response before propping herself against the kitchen sink and taking a long sip of her own hot drink. “He was pretty wigged out at the hospital when we came to visit. I didn’t know if he’d stick around or not.”

Her words were like a punch in the gut. He grunted into his mug, not looking up.

A beat. “You in love with him?”

Now he looked up. Fiona was gazing at him with an unreadable expression. “What?”

“Are you in love with him?” she repeated, softer.

He paused, staring back at her. Should he lie? Would that make things easier?

“Yeah,” he said quietly, deciding that no, it wouldn’t make things easier. “Yeah, I am.”

Fiona’s face remained unreadable, but he could see her features thaw at the admission. “Thought so. Don’t give up yet, okay? Maybe he’ll come around.”

Ian’s hand tightened around his mug. There was no word big enough in the English language to describe how much he wanted that to be true.

* * *

It was true.

“Sorry I’m late.”

_(I love you too, asshole.)_

* * *

Ian woke up to white light pouring into his bedroom through the blinds. He grunted into his pillow, curling around it and hugging it closer to quell the absent feeling of Mickey’s body next to him in the tiny little twin-bed. He had a distant headache most likely leftover from the pounds of sedatives he’d been coming off the day prior.

“Morning, sleepy-face.”

Ian lifted his head. Mickey was leaning against the door jamb of the bedroom, a faint, fond smile ghosting his lips while he crossed his arms loosely. 

“Hey,” Ian replied languidly, letting go of the pillow and pushing himself up on his elbows. 

“How you feelin’?”

Ian feigned a shrug, blinking the harsh spots of light out of his eyes. “Tired.”

Mickey nodded absently. “I can imagine. You hungry?"

“Yeah, a bit.”

“Well, your sister’s making chocolate-chip pancakes if you want some.” Mickey uncrossed his arms and pushed away from the threshold, coming to perch on the edge of the bed, mattress dipping under his weight. Ian scrubbed a hand across his face and watched his boyfriend reach a hand up to ruffle his hair playfully. “Your hair’s getting fucking long, man. You aren’t planning on growing it out like Kev’s, are you?”

Ian snorted and leaned appreciatively into Mickey’s hand, kind of like a cat. “Nah, I couldn’t pull that off.”

“Yeah, you’d look pretty ugly.” Mickey laughed as Ian shot him a death glare in response. Before he could bite out something else, he ran his hand over the top of Ian’s head and down to the back of his neck and tugged him closer so their faces were only a few inches apart. 

Eagerly, Ian closed the distance, capturing Mickey’s lower lip between his own. He tasted like toothpaste and caffeine, a telltale sign that he’d been awake for a while. Ian let out an unintentional sigh as Mickey’s hands slipped underneath the hem of his tank top.

_(I’m never getting sick of this.)_

Mickey was the first to break it off, eliciting a disappointed frown from Ian. “Sorry,” he apologized, smiling sheepishly before removing his hands from Ian’s back and tugging at his shirt a little to smooth out the wrinkles. “You need to take your meds.”

Ian huffed, pushing the sheets back and swinging his legs off the bed. “Fine. Can we pick this up later?”

“Yes, we can,” Mickey replied, standing up. “But after breakfast. I’m starving.”

Ian’s stomach rumbled in agreement. 

He pulled on a pair of sweatpants and followed Mickey out of the bedroom, yawning as his bare feet trudged down the creaky stairs. Sure enough, Debbie was posted in front of the stove, a plate of steaming pancakes stacked next to her. They exchanged their respective ‘good morning’s as Mickey popped open one of Ian’s many orange pill bottles and handed it over. He swallowed them one by one routinely, washing them down with a glass of orange juice before grabbing a plate and commandeering one of Debbie’s pancakes. 

He was just about to sit down at the head of the table when he caught sight of his boyfriend in a new light as he stood in front of the kitchen sink and filled a glass of water. For some reason, he hadn’t noticed before, but now he saw that Mickey was wearing The Sweater. 

His heart thudded. Fuck. 

“Are you okay?” he found himself blurting before he could think better of it, causing both Mickey and Debbie to look over at him with equally puzzled expressions. 

“Me?” Mickey asked, brow furrowing. He rounded the kitchen counter and came to sit in the chair adjacent to Ian’s. “Last I checked I was fine, yeah. Why?”

Ian blinked, disoriented. Mickey only wore the sweater when he was sad or angry or frustrated. Despite its retail classification as casual wear, Ian definitely did not regard it as casual. 

“It’s just, you’re wearing the…” he gestured lamely at Mickey’s sweater. “That.”

Mickey looked down at himself, then back up with an eyebrow cocked. “And?”

“And… um.” Ian was at a loss for words. How could he say something like that? He couldn’t just haul off and confess that he’s figured out his boyfriend’s biggest quirk, because that could make things awkward, or it could make Mickey insecure or… or something. “Nevermind. Just-- are you sure you’re okay?”

Mickey looked at him weirdly. “I’m sure, dude. I should be asking you that, really. I’m not the one downing lithium three times a day.”

The statement would have hurt coming from anyone else, but Ian knew Mickey meant zero harm by it, so he let it slide. “Right.” He sat down and started cutting into his pancake, averting his eyes from his boyfriend.

They ate in comfortable silence while Debbie hummed some Top 40 song under her breath as she cooked. Ian snuck a few furtive glances at his boyfriend as he stuffed the sugary breakfast food into his mouth, feeling a little like he was a lovestruck high schooler stealing looks at his big dumb crush. 

“You know I love you, right?”

Mickey almost choked on his bite of pancake. He looked at Ian with wide eyes, pounding a fist against his chest to ease his coughing. Ian stared back at him, unphased. 

“Um,” Mickey finally said after recovering from his bout and taking a long gulp of water. “I… uh. Yeah. I love you, too.”

Those words sounded so much better coming from his mouth in real-time and not through a shaky voicemail. Ian smiled at him while Debbie made a sound of disgust from the kitchen.

“You guys are gross.”

Ian flipped her the bird. Mickey laughed, breathy and small, but happy nonetheless.

“Aren’t you cold, man?” he asked a moment later, changing the subject and nodding at Ian’s skimpy tank top and thin sweatpants. “It’s like, forty degrees out. You should put on a jacket or something so you don’t freeze to death.”

( _“No matter what you do, anything you say or do to them will bite you in the ass later in life,”_ came Lip’s voice in his head.)

Ian smirked and stabbed the last chunk of pancake on his plate with his fork. “Fuck off.”

**Author's Note:**

> sorry about the rushed ending -- there are a million ways i could have gone with this trope, and this fic could have honestly gone on for another twenty-thousand words, but i'm lazy and i didn't want to retell the entire series lol. 
> 
> thanks for reading! hope you're all staying safe and healthy in this crazy time.
> 
> come hang out with me on [tumblr](https://dynazty.tumblr.com/) if you so desire. i promise i don't bite :) <3


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